Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/280

268 "I thought it was," the girl returned, "but that awful hand moved just as I was looking at the stone, and we hurried out after that. Perhaps it means five million burried [sic] there!"

Ben whistled.

"Five million. Now you are seeing things. But I'm ready to believe almost anything now. Still that figure's more likely to stand for some measurement. We'll dig around the tree tomorrow and find the iron men—if there are any—. I'll bet it s a practical joke that some fellow thought he'd play on his lazy descendants to make 'em work."

"Never mind, it will be fun just the same."

"There are your friends, Sally." "Who?" "The three crooks from the yacht."

Below the cape and headed away from it, three black figures, one taller and more slender than the others, one of medium size and burly, the last bow-legged and short, and trailing behind the others, picked their way over the sands in the noontide glare.

"I wonder if they've found the place."

"I don't know," he answered, "but they're getting very warm."

While Sally rested, Ben descended to the beach on a scouting expedition. He was far out on the sands when she, feeling thirsty and hearing laughing ripples that betrayed the presence of a brook somewhere in the woods behind her, went in seach [sic] of it.

It was a pretty, harum-scarum stream, unbridged except